The question, therefore, which I once put to you before, and which I certainly would put to that plucky little fellow Lord John Russell, if I happened to have the honour of his acquaintance, is simply this--Would it not be better that the evidence which is now taken before committees of the House of Commons on railway and other bills should be given in Scotland, Ireland, and the provinces, before a paid commission and on oath? Certain I am that the work would be far better done. Results would be more accurately brought out, the truth would be better sifted, and there would be an end to that profligate system of demoralisation which is doing no good to London, and is rapidly corrupting such of us as are necessarily drawn within its influence. Honourable members would be relieved from a harassing, tedious, and laborious duty; and their legislative functions need not be interfered with, as the printed evidence would fall to be leisurely and thoroughly sifted. At present a member of the House of Commons is far less a legislator than a mere railway machine. He has not time to study the merits of the vast public questions which ought above every thing to claim his attention; for his whole day is occupied with a dreary detail of curves, gradients, and sections; and by being compelled to do too much, he is crippled in the exercise and discharge of by far his most important functions. And further, the railway interest is already too widely spread in the House of Commons. Almost every member has an interest, direct or indirect, in some particular line or company; and it is impossible to expect that in every case there shall not be a particular sway or bias in the minds of some of the judges. This is not right nor decent. The leading quality which is required of a judge in every department is a strict and thorough impartiality, and an absolute renunciation of every interested motive;--and no sacrifice on the part of the public can be too great to attain so desirable an end. It would be well for us if, during the last and the preceding year, country members had been more occupied with watching the attitude and the proceedings of the ministry, and less with the conflicting statements of rival companies and engineers. Had they been attending to the Currency and the Corn Laws, we ought to have escaped from a commercial crisis, in which even the railway shareholder, as I imagine, has been tolerably severely pinched.